Thanks Spoke-, they won’t get me down - Clinton’s cackle get’s me down - but not posters on this board. 
I’m very positive for the way I think things will roll today and tonight. I think the weather bodes well for Obama tonight in Ohio and I think the Caucus format bodes very well for him tonight. It’ll be a nail biter but I’ll be alright !
Start as many as you want, or as many as the mods will let you.
I’m just saying that I think you underestimate Hillary. I agree she is a long shot at this point, but if she does win in Texas and Ohio, she may get some momentum swing going into PA. Obama has the tide heavily in his favor, but there is still the possibility it could turn, and if it does, Hillary will start to catch up.
And then the Clinton media spin machine will kick into overdrive. Give her the slightest bit of hope and she’ll try to turn it into a mandate. There will be arm-twisting like you’ve never seen before as she tries to nail down every Superdelgate. Then she’ll get nasty. The public will long for the days of Rove when that happens.
Better for the world if we drive a stake through her heart today when we have the chance.
Take a look at how the NFL season ended this year. Teams that locked up their playoff spots early and coasted in wound up getting beat by the two teams that played full out all the way to the end.
What works about Clinton vs. Obama is that they’re both considered legit candidates, both considered good options to go up against McCain. It’s not like the Dems are trying to figure out which vanilla snoozefest to prop up for defeat. People are talking about it, interested in both candidates, that’s not a negative.
It’s also a big plus that, if it turns out to be Obama, he would have started way behind and charged his way to victory, gaining momentum. Big contrast to starting way ahead and limping to victory.
Oh I remember New Hampshire, and Obama remembers New Hampshire. That is why he redoubled his efforts in Texas right after Feb 5th. Clinton didn’t do that until about a week and a half to two weeks ago. I get emails from Obama’s camp and he has been talking about Texas for a long, long time. Tonight is going to be interesting. His grassroots efforts in Texas have tripled in three weeks, I take heart in that.
Clinton is a formidable woman, not a formidable foe. She is a fighter, and is putting on her game face, she has to. If she didn’t people wouldn’t turn out to vote for her. However, I wonder if it is too little too late, only 12 hours to find out. It’s going to be interesting to say the least. If she in fact loses big tonight I wonder if she will jump ship or hold on. My sense is she’ll hold on to any positive and try to recharacterize it into a resurgance.
I look at Obama’s numbers for new donors and in just over 72 hours he has had over 40,000 new donations. I think the people will come out tonight for him.
I’m just worried about your blood pressure, Phlosphr. Try to breath slowly and deeply for the rest of the day, and everything will turn out just fine. The Democrats are in one of the best positions they have been in for a long time, and they will pull together in the end.
Mrs.Phlosphr - Honey why are you so flushed??
Me - What do you mean??
Mrs.Phlosphr - your cheeks are all rosey…
Me - that’s weird!
Mrs.Phlosphr - Ok, shut off the TV and turn the damned Computer OFF!
Me - ok.
I don’t see any particular problem with Clinton staying in through the rest of the primaries, since the race is reasonably close. (What is strange is Huckabee staying in the race even thought McCain clearly has the nomination sewn up - guess he wants to be the “frontrunner” if the good senator should happen to slough off this mortal coil in the next few months.)
Where things could get messy is the convention. Let’s presume that things play out as it now appears they will: Obama goes to Denver with just enough delegates for a first-ballot nomination. If Clinton graciously bows out, all is well. But if she decides to go the Denver and fight for the prize, it’s gonna get ugly.
(Didn’t somebody - seems it was Ted Kennedy - try to work up some sort of last-ditch effort to snag the nomination at the convention, even though the presumptive nominee - Jimmy Carter? - had a bulletproof delegate count?)
I don’t blame her for staying in and I don’t think she’ll do irrepairable harm to the Democratic party.
However, I think she’ll harm the Democratic Party’s chances with independants & moderates and that, without those, the Democratic Party won’t win in November. So, yeah, I think the card-carrying party faithful will vote for whoever wins the nomination. But they won’t be enough.
A bigger concern, down the road, is that we have a lot of young voters registering and, if they think Obama was “stolen” from them, they’re unlikely to vote for Clinton and may even go for McCain. A bubble of young voters gaining a concept of party identity for the other side (“I voted Republican”) when they could have had the same for the Democrats would be a loss for the party. I’m not suggesting that Clinton step down because of this, just that it would have been a nice thing for a bunch of young people to start the habit of voting Democrat.
What Hillary is doing is making it very hard for her to be an asset to the Republican Party vis a vis the Presidential election, should Obama getthe nomination. Her implication that Obama is not ready to take that 3 a.m. phone call is hard to disavvow come general election time.
How would Hillary disavow her claims about Obama if she steps down? Wouldn’t it look awefully bad for her to get all nicey nice after slamming him so hard? Or is that the point.
Stranger things have happened. Reagan’s “voodoo economics” seemed to suit George HW Bush just fine after he was picked to run with Reagan.
You think they’re going to reverse their positions on a bunch of social issues and magically become Republicans? I’d like to hear the logic. There are some Obama voters who prefer McCain to Clinton, sure, but I don’t think that’s the young voters.
Do you remember the 2004 election? Do you remember Kerry and Edwards going at it hammer and tongs? Now…think about what happened when Kerry got the nomination…
-XT
Yes, that was the point. Sorry I wasn’t very clear.
You could also look at this as a way for Obama to further endear himself to Independents, Republicans, and general anybody but Clinton folks. The longer that she is in the race the longer the previously mentioned groups can get use to rooting for Obama. Where as all the scrutiny is now on Mccain on the Republican side, people are still watching the Democratic race and putting all their ire on Hillary and rooting for Obama.
The race baiting, the politics of fear, even the petty plagiarism charges; these are all tricks that would have inevitably been used by the GOP. However with all this coming from the right’s favorite boogywoman Hillary, people, I think, are looking at the charges a lot more objectively and, correctly, rallying behind Obama. Now if the only source of such nonsense was from the Rush’s and Faux’s of the world this same crowd would take it as gospel and never even give Obama the opportunity to counter. Though with Clinton, they all take a step back, “Wait who said that? Hillary Clinton? Oh, well then that can’t be right, I mean it’s Hillary Clinton.”…eventually…“Hey you know, I’ve been watching him, and this Obama feller ain’t so bad after all. Heck, he sure beat the pant suit of that Clinton gal.”
Also, like **Simplicio **was saying, the Clinton campaign are making these dirty tricks old news, but at the same time, the degree to which they are making such attacks is a whole lot less vicious than the GOP would have done. The general public has been made sick of, and already turned on, this type of politicking while still in its relatively soft state, as opposed to being ‘shocked and awed’ with the really nasty stuff in the general.
I’ve said it before, but I really think the Clinton’s, for along time now, have been aware of the reality of Obama and not Hillary getting the nod. I think they, having the political clout and reputability to get away with it; are playing the bad guys, shouldering the load of negative attention, and priming Obama to be able to win the whole thing for the Democrats come November. Their falling on their own sword for the better of the party as a whole. I’m not too worried about the party coming together in the end, all that is left, eventually, is for the Clintons to bring up and guard the rear.
Fortunately, across the aisle, Mccain, has been doing enough damage to his own cause to further help Obama’s chances; unlike Hillary, I don’t think this is his motive for doing so.
If Hillary tries to muscle her way to the nomination in a brokered convention, that could cause some harm to the Dems, although I wouldn’t call it 'irreparable". I just don’t think the party bosses will allow that happen. It’s a long shot for her to even be in a position to do that, and even if she does get to that point, she will lose even more support from the establishment Democrats.
Gotcha, I get it. I wasn’t as involved with that campaign as I am with this one. I kept a pulse on it but that’s about it. I’m slightly more vested in this campaign. 
Thanks…
This has been a very mild primary. Neither candidate has said much of anything that will cause serious harm to the other in the general election. I think the fact that we have two viable candidates at this point is a strength, not a weakness, in contrast to the Republican party, which just seems to have given up and gone with their emergency standby candidate.
They made nice in public, ran a dysfunctional campaign, lost, and haven’t talked since.